1st play, No Random Battles Run

30 posts in this topic

Alright, I'll pipe back up now. When I initially aimed criticism over your editing of the mod, it had looked like you had made, or alluded to, adding or changing other things besides being able to move around faster or removing random battles. In fact, if I pull more of the quote past what I put in, it states:

On 10/1/2017 at 6:36 PM, TheRebalancer said:

I cheated/turbo'd through to include some fixes on additions to the mod that I believe are a mistake: the chest in the beginner classroom being the first (so edgar comes in at 6 not 5).

So, you also edited experience points from certain fixed encounters so you could get characters to your expected levels? The vague nature of that entire paragraph about what you did edit is exactly why I nailed that down first and responded as I did: because you edited things beyond simple quality of life (for yourself) improvements, despite your claims otherwise.

You said you would provide a rom that would match identically to a stock 1.8.6 rom. Because of the above in your original post, I don't believe that to be true, but I would welcome to be proven wrong. That is providing you don't remove any of your edits to the game that you made so Edgar or others could join the party at differing levels so you could avoid grinding to your favoured levels.

For the record and second time in case it wasn't apparent: quality of life changes are one thing, but editing anything to give you more EXP like you did with the chest fight in the Beginners school is another, and what I was annoyed about. That led me to be dismissive of your ordeal and comlaints regarding balance in the game.

Everything before that point I did look at and scrutinize for valuable input regarding varying parts of the mod, but as I said in my post.

On 10/1/2017 at 7:55 PM, Yuyu said:

anything you typed after saying that

I should have also been more clear: anything you typed after that regarding balance of any concern. Other things mentioned after the point in question have seen discussion periodically on the Discord.

So, yes, a good portion of it is an interesting read, if not a muddled jumble.

Off topic for here, but I did notice in a different thread that you discovered what Leo's Crest did, or at least the bulk of it. Have you managed to figure out more hidden effects besides the Mystery Egg? I know of a few effects of it myself, but I keep it to myself as requested.

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By "problem", I mean the issue that you can't proceed without grinding. If you had known about the cap, the extra SP you would have had might have been enough to make the difference

Pointing out version mismatches and that sort of thing is useful, and thank you for doing that. Stuff like pause vs. ellipsis is a matter of taste, since I believe they both take the same amount of space in the dialogue banks, but it's fine to voice your opinion. Those kinds of comments are the ones nobody's addressing because nobody has any feelings on them one way or the other. They would both be likelier to be seen if they were clearly separated from your opinions that are influenced by your choice of run, like whether or not there's a Monster-In-A-Box in the collapsing house in Tzen.

The changes you made include the cheat codes you used - if you're not aware, those work by altering the game's data. They're functionally equivalent to very small patches, and do not take advantage of any functionality that's actually built into the game. The only difference between them and something like Bob New Ross is scale and some technical details.

PS. Why do you ask?

Because the magic system is split up, and I wouldn't know who would be useful, I basically did something very close to a natural magic run too. The only time I spent magic was during the first atma and maybe umaro. I kinda trusted the game about it being okay to bank SP, so it was basically the whole game's worth of SP that's "lost". Obviously I can turn off xp and put in a half hour, so its not that big a deal. But this would have been the case if I hadn't run from all random battles; I still wouldn't have trusted the respec option later and would have trusted the banking. Basically I put my faith in the wrong mechanic.

But again, I took detailed notes, so a few minutes of "virtual grinding" with the XP gains off would put the run exactly back on track as if I had known of the SP cap. Its not a big "problem." The only reason I mentioned it was in case there was a game genie code someone had. I did not expect such massive "anti-cheating" backlash from a ROM hack community. It can be ignored.

Also, turbo/game genie is a built in feature unless there is some Bob New Ross code I'm unaware of.

PS. I have spoken with you on other boards, potentially.

On 10/7/2017 at 6:27 PM, Yuyu said:

Alright, I'll pipe back up now. When I initially aimed criticism over your editing of the mod, it had looked like you had made, or alluded to, adding or changing other things besides being able to move around faster or removing random battles. In fact, if I pull more of the quote past what I put in, it states:

So, you also edited experience points from certain fixed encounters so you could get characters to your expected levels? The vague nature of that entire paragraph about what you did edit is exactly why I nailed that down first and responded as I did: because you edited things beyond simple quality of life (for yourself) improvements, despite your claims otherwise.

You said you would provide a rom that would match identically to a stock 1.8.6 rom. Because of the above in your original post, I don't believe that to be true, but I would welcome to be proven wrong. That is providing you don't remove any of your edits to the game that you made so Edgar or others could join the party at differing levels so you could avoid grinding to your favoured levels.

For the record and second time in case it wasn't apparent: quality of life changes are one thing, but editing anything to give you more EXP like you did with the chest fight in the Beginners school is another, and what I was annoyed about. That led me to be dismissive of your ordeal and comlaints regarding balance in the game.

Everything before that point I did look at and scrutinize for valuable input regarding varying parts of the mod, but as I said in my post.

I should have also been more clear: anything you typed after that regarding balance of any concern. Other things mentioned after the point in question have seen discussion periodically on the Discord.

So, yes, a good portion of it is an interesting read, if not a muddled jumble.

Off topic for here, but I did notice in a different thread that you discovered what Leo's Crest did, or at least the bulk of it. Have you managed to figure out more hidden effects besides the Mystery Egg? I know of a few effects of it myself, but I keep it to myself as requested.

It's not quoting the part where you quote me in the quote button. Ug. That's why I like to not use quote buttons on boards and instead do things manually with quote tags. You never know what they will do. "I turbo'd throughto include some fixeson additions to the mod that I believe are a mistake" is off by one letter. It should have said "or" instead of "on". I've edited that letter. Anyways, the statement is correct but not very relevant. For instance when I go grind back the SP to put the run "on track" I will be using turbo to correct for one of those things I think are mistakes, or atleast oversights. Why cap the SP at all? I also tested the no-XP mode at the very end of WoB (to gain gold for those magicites that I otherwise shouldn't have by the rules of the run) after I realized the null SP gain was retained from vanilla. This way if the mod didn't have vanilla's "cheaper magicite" option in WoR, I wouldn't lose anything.

I didn't mention the null SP thing because it was a hold-over from vanilla and thus not relevent to direct criticisms of the mod, but I think that near the null XP mode (which of course limits EL) there should also be a secondary null-SP mode. This allows the SP that you would gain from newly entering characters to rack up. An example is Setzer joining after fleeing the magitech factory. You don't have the option to equip an esper on him before, so you lose some SP. Again, its a small feature request but it always bugged me that vanilla did that.

About level amounts: There's a reason its hard to follow that. I'm glad you asked. What happened was that I basically edited the rules of the run temporarily to see if it would make the atma fight any different (spoiler, it didn't). I was curious if the fight would be doable if BNW had followed vanilla's level amounts. While it did make the fight shorter, it also make the choke points harder. Specifically, because the levels went up it caused the damage formula of one of atma's attacks to go even more off the scales. That's when I knew something was wrong with the attack. Grinding is how you make the game easier, not make your TPKs even more pronounced.

That's why I so heavily disliked not knowing what was going on in the damage formulas. In vanilla, it kind of doesn't matter because levels are ... good. But in BNW levels are almost useless. What really matters is ELs. This reaks of the classic "you must use my mechanic to proceed" gaming flaw that almost all games have to some degree. For a particularly glaring example, try playing Starcraft II wings of liberty on the train mission and not using diamond backs on brutal. It's almost impossible. I spent three and a half hours grinding it out just because being shoe-horned into a bad unit type was not my idea of fun. Years later I redid the level and it took a half hour to use their (forced) tool. But I digress.

You're misreading that one sentence. I did not in fact edit "anything to give you more EXP like you did with the chest fight in the Beginners school." Do you really think I took a hex editor to an already hacked game (after decompiling it) just to maintain the integrity on a run that, frankly, no one else has the balls for? No, of course not (especially considering I've stated I don't want it to take any longer than it has to). All I did was track how much it should have given (remember that I've restarted this run many times, some in vanilla) and then fight a random battle to simulate that XP. Being off by 5xp makes no difference when character levels are re-averaged.

Sigh. Again, since I have not edited the game (only the run retroactively), of course the ROM will be the same as anyone else's. Give me an upload link and I'll throw it up for you. Zzz

As best I can tell, I've tested out every piece of interaction I can tease from the mod. I did not enjoy that process because it slowed down an already very long run. Remember that in addition to playing the game, I'm trying to ascertain if the run is even doable at all, since no one else has done it. I don't want to give up, post the details here, and then be told that somebody else did it successfully (insert dark souls meme here). You might be able to show me things that I don't know, due to having no random battles.

Specifically, I had to make sure at each of my three choke points, that there wasn't something I was missing that would allow me to progress. I was mocked earlier for not doing my research prior to the run earlier, but that's a direct contradiction to the "go find out for yourself" mentality about certain things in BNW, but not others. And the line is arbitrary, and unspoken. But I won't rehash that here. I will say that its completely in line with my request that more enemy information be in the printme. Its BNW-only information so I literally cannot go research it if I wanted to: BNW monsters are no longer vanilla monsters.

Edited October 9, 2017 by TheRebalancer

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I cheated/turbo'd through to include some fixes or additions to the mod that I believe are a mistake: the chest in the beginner classroom being the first (so edgar comes in at 6 not 5). He should already be up a level, and sabin should be up 2.

Even with your correction, your statement clearly means "I cheated (either by modifying XP values, save editing, a game genie code, or simply by fighting an extra battle) to get more xp"

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Also, turbo/game genie is a built in feature unless there is some Bob New Ross code I'm unaware of.

wat? You're VERY focused on the whole turbo part of people's criticisms. You are acting as if using frame skip is the thing we're critiquing you on when that's probably the thing we're most okay with here. All you've really been doing is complaining about the differences from vanilla in an incoherent way while simultaneously saying "I compromised my challenge run to make up for the mod's changes"

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80/living partymembers * Rand living PC lvl

I'm going to assume, for the sake of discussion, that the formula above is accurate to the damage of the attack. 80/4*level = 20*level damage. Every level after 9 grants 20 or more HP, meaning that levels are an appropriate defense even against the attack that scales off levels. As an aside, if you're wearing a 12.5% hp booster you only need an 18 HP level for levels to be stronger than the attack scaling, so level 8. If you're wearing a 25% HP booster you only need 15 HP, so level 5. If you're wearing a 50% HP booster then you only need 14 HP, so every level past 4 would scale better than the attack does. Note that this also ignores damage variance for simplicity sake, but that's relatively minor.

In fact, I can personally vouch that HP ELs aren't needed to handle that attack as my last run had 0 ELs used on HP or MP gain. EDIT: Also, let it be pointed out that Flare Star does the exact same level scaling that it does in Vanilla FF6. This alone invalidates your "Levels don't do anything bad in Vanilla" argument.

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In vanilla, it kind of doesn't matter because levels are ... good. But in BNW levels are almost useless. What really matters is ELs.

And you're wrong again. Levels have an exponential effect on physical damage output, whereas Vigor has a linear effect on physical damage output. Levels and MagPow scale magical damage output equally. The only place you really have a leg to stand on regarding "ELs > Levels" is in HP/MP scaling. For reference... After level 9, levels give more HP than +20 HP ELs. After level 14, levels give more HP than +30 ELs. HP +60 ELs are the only ones that stay stronger than level gain for the majority of the game, only losing out to level based HP gain after level 29 (which is in the ballpark of what the end-game is balanced for). Do also note the HP +60 are limited to late-game espers only. MP scaling via ELs does remain stronger than level scaling, but that's a pretty minor thing.

Levels grant benefits to HP pools, MP pools, Magic scaling, and Physical damage scaling, all at once. ELs only grant bonuses in up to 2 stats per EL. In addition, the player is (outside of extreme cases... more extreme than what you're doing) going to have more levels than ELs. So... you're wrong. Levels are a larger overall benefit than ELs.

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Do you really think I took a hex editor to an already hacked game (after decompiling it)...

Because FF3usME exists, because game genie codes to gain levels exist, and because FF6 save editors exist. No, you didn't "decompile and hex edit" the ROM.

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just to maintain the integrity on a run that, frankly, no one else has the balls for?

Your run's far from the most hardcore one that's been done here. LLGs have been done multiple times under multiple versions, one player has played through the game blindfolded. Both of said runs didn't need to resort to ROM editing or game genie to accomplish them. Quit acting like you're hardcore. You clearly came into the game not knowing what you were getting into and just complained and asked for cheats to get around your own mistakes in your own challenge run.

Edit to add:

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This reaks of the classic "you must use my mechanic to proceed" gaming flaw that almost all games have to some degree

Do you go to FF7 boards and complain "The game really seems to be designed around equipping Materia" or go to Super Mario boards and complain "I really have to jump a lot in this game"? These are just 2 examples of things more 'extreme' than ELs... It's called design. If you don't like mechanics that are meant to be worked you probably don't like games, as that's kinda a central feature to them.

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I was mocked earlier for not doing my research prior to the run earlier, but that's a direct contradiction to the "go find out for yourself" mentality about certain things in BNW

There's a big difference between lacking research on what BNW changes and how before doing a challenge run compared to a desire to have... about 3 secrets that we choose to not have revealed where it can be moderated to have that be.

Edited October 9, 2017 by NoweaAdded a thing

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Really, the primary issues people have here (other than how highly you seem to think of yourself) is that you effectively cheated/broke the rules in your own challenge (while still making a big deal out of having done the challenge), complained about things you didn't test/look into beforehand and then made "corrections" for, and completely missed the point of pretty much everything that's been said.

I don't care what the challenge you're doing is, how hard it is or how long it takes to do, if you break any of the challenge rules then the challenge is forfeit. Emulator frameskip/turbo/whatever is generally accepted for challenge runs (outside of things like speedruns, where it goes against and would only hurt the challenge anyway), and I can also see adding QoL mods/codes that don't directly affect the challenge itself, but anything that breaks the rules or gives you a direct advantage is a big nope. You've already admitted to cheating, with your excuses for doing so primarily consisting of "I should have free levels here because I got them in vanilla." instead of actually learning how to do the challenge properly inside of BNW's environment.

As far as the whole "not having done a normal run first" issue, I can see doing a challenge run as your first playthrough if you actually test out each segment and mechanic separately and then reloading the challenge save after to actually do it. In basically every challenge run I've ever done I needed to go through certain battles/areas multiple times as well as test out several combinations of gear/mechanics to make it through certain parts, and some challenges basically require knowing the game inside and out to properly plan out and successfully run. For example, the SP cap you keep bitching about is something you could have very easily found if you spent time testing it rather than expecting it to work in whatever way you had in your mind. If you can't be bothered to take time to do this, then you really can't complain when something unexpected happens.

Even if you never did a normal BNW run, you could see how much experience you get from specific things by spending short bursts outside of the challenge (using the same save, just reloading later after testing) and plan things out rather than getting mad that you aren't getting the same levels you did in vanilla. BNW is not vanilla, and there is no reason to expect or require the same things that the vanilla version of the challenge should have. If I do a LLG of vanilla, I shouldn't expect the same levels doing one in BNW, especially since there's an option to turn experience off (not counting the level (re-)averaging and enemy experience differences).

Basically, all I'm seeing from your entire initial post and continued arguments is that you expected the challenge to go exactly like vanilla with the primary planning/leveling and didn't know what to do when things were completely different. So, you improvised by trying to make it match vanilla and then complained every time something new and unexpected appeared, as well as finding any little thing we say to make an argument about just to continue bitching. Since a NRB run of BNW is obviously not for you, how about playing it normally instead, or even doing an LLG? At least then you wouldn't need to worry about levels or EL.

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I'm tired of the forum warrior epeen over 9000 posts. It's getting old and quite impossible to read really any of it. So I'm locking the thread to prevent further shitposts.

Bottom line: the OP modded the mod. There's nothing wrong with this, but you're no longer playing the mod and revoke the ability to offer criticism (constructive or otherwise) of the actual mod when you do this. Your points became invalid before you ever tried to make them.